Bitcoin exceeds 50,000 USD

After more than two years, Bitcoin surpassed $50,000 for the first time thanks to a sharp increase in money flowing into ETF funds, expectations of interest rate cuts and the upcoming "halving".

Since the end of last year, the world's largest cryptocurrency has mainly traded below 45,000 USD per unit, moving sideways after the wave of ETF funds approved in the US. Bitcoin started to surpass its resistance level at the end of last week.

After a day of trading around 48,000 USD, this digital currency increased sharply since late last night and surpassed the 50,000 USD mark as soon as February 13 entered. Up nearly 4% in 24 hours and up more than 16% since the beginning of the year, this is the highest price since the end of 2021. After that, the market price dropped but quickly regained the above mark. At one point, Bitcoin reached more than 50,314 USD per coin.

Antoni Trenchev - co-founder of digital lending platform Nexo said: "$50,000 is an important milestone for Bitcoin after the launch of spot ETFs last month, which not only did not create a strong price increase". but also led to a 20% sell-off ".

CoinDesk believes that this price increase is related to Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) - the largest Bitcoin trust in the world. Over the past few weeks, outflows from GBTC slowed, while sizable inflows continued into new products. On February 8, Grayscale lost just 1,850 Bitcoin, while nine other ETFs added nearly 11,000 tokens to their funds. On February 9, Grayscale lost 2,252 coins, while the remaining 9 ETFs accumulated more than 13,000 units. This number is huge compared to the 900 new Bitcoins that are mined and released to the market every day.

In total, spot Bitcoin ETFs have completed their first 20 sessions, reaching $10 billion in assets under management (AUM). Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas said that in the next few months, cash flows into these funds will increase as companies complete their portfolio appraisals.

In addition, according to Reuters , digital currencies are performing positively according to global stock indexes. Financial investors generally believe that the US Federal Reserve ( Fed ) may begin cutting interest rates this year. They expect May could be the starting point for a new monetary policy.

Investors are also eagerly awaiting the next Bitcoin "halving", scheduled to take place in April. This is an event that takes place every four years, reducing miners' rewards by half. Bitcoin has increased in price in three previous halvings, most recently in 2020.